Sunday, December 16, 2007

Merry Christmas

We had our unit Christmas party last night. We had some of our training cadre join us, with some family members as well. It went very well, for being a kind of last minute thing. I made a small contribution to the levity of the evening with a song I whipped up - it goes to the tune of
"Que Sera sera" (as sung by Doris Day):

When I was a Class 36 soldier*
I asked the cadre, "what will I be?"
"Will I be a fobbit** or out in the weeds?"
This was their reply to me:

Inshallah, 'shallah***
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Inshallah, 'shallah
It's out of our hands you see.

When I was in Arabic Class and Lab
I asked the teacher "how much do I need?"
"Should I stick to greetings [salaam]?"
"Or work on commands [awgaf!]?"
This was his reply to me:

Inshallah, 'shallah
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Inshallah, 'shallah
It's out of our hands you
see.

So I went to our Culture lessons,
I asked the instructor "how will it be?"
"Will they try to screw me?"
"Or will they be friendly?"
And this is what he said to me:

Inshallah, 'shallah
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Inshallah, 'shallah
It's out of our hands you see.

Inshallah, 'shallah!

* this is the group I belong to
** fobbit - one who is loathe to ever leave their FOB (Forward Operating Base).
*** Inshallah - "As God wills" Quite often used in a fatalistic way, or in the same way as "Manyana" or "bhalla nalla".
salaam - "peace", awgaf - stop!

All in all, it was well received (everyone joined in the last chorus). I think it may be evidence that the two weeks leave I will be taking around Christmas is sorely needed...

4 Comments:

Blogger maggie katzen said...

Yay! I'd wondered if you'd have leave around Christmas.

6:29 PM  
Blogger LTC John said...

Quite - They are being very different this mobilization. Better equipment, better training and not pushing us too hard before we even start.

Plus, it doesn't hurt that I will end up with plenty of leave time thanks to this being my second deployment in a relatively short time. That Post Deployment admin leave can be used for R&R leave too!

P.S. I bet you would do a whole lot better singing this song than I did...

6:39 PM  
Blogger maggie katzen said...

aw yeah, I do an awesome Doris Day. ;D

12:25 AM  
Blogger Citizen Deux said...

F-N brilliant!

10:04 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

  • Wikablog - The Weblog Directory

  • My blog is worth $60,970.32.
    How much is your blog worth?